Tag Archives: MHT

We’ve all heard that exercise is good for our health and well being—stress relief, weight loss, dopamine induced waves of happiness, etc. But, what if exercise could be a major treatment to cancer? We’re serious. This isn’t a gimmick to try and trick you into exercising. According to Medical News Today, a new study revealed that exercise can actually reduce the growth and size of a tumor.

Scientists noticed that mice that spent their free times running on a wheel demonstrated a 50% reduction in tumor growth and size. They had previous knowledge that exercise improves functionality and outcomes in cancerous patients, but this observation spurred a study that would specifically hone in on the adrenaline rush experience by high intensity work-outs.

Senior study author Pernille Hojman, of the University of Copenhagen, and her colleagues decided to inject tumorous mice with adrenaline to replicate exercise’s effects on these mice. They noticed that their natural killer immune cells, which regulate tumor size, began to infiltrate the bloodstream which eventually leads to the tumor. So, exercise releases adrenaline which allows NK immune cells to float freely in the bloodstream and make contact with the tumor.

This isn’t just a freak incidence. In order to verify this finding they decided to have mice that didn’t produce NK cells work out at the same level of intensity. As it turns out, the tumor was unaffected and kept growing. The adrenaline induced NK cell was the cause of the tumor’s reduction in size.

Can you believe that exercise can actually reduce the size of a tumor? How inexpensive and amazing is that? The study is just the beginning and researchers have more work to do in order to figure out more specifics and ensure that humans will respond the same way that the mice responded, but this is an incredible finding. You can read more about the study here.